It took a couple tries, but Dylan Bowman and Jorge Maravilla both earned a spot in the big dance, Western States, via the Montrail Ultra Cup on the strength of their first and third place finishes at the Leona Divide 50 mile in southern California on Saturday. Bowman ran near the front all day before opening a lead between 30 and 40 miles. He broke Ben Hian‘s 17-year-old course record (6:21:37 ’95) by 21 minutes. Maravilla also ran near the front of the field before Bowman took off. However, Timothy Olson made a late move to pass Maravilla and take second with Maravilla finishing close behind in third. Jason Wolfe (fading) and Jason Schlarb (charging) took fourth and fifth respectively.

Heather Fuhr crushed her second 50 miler along with the rest of the women’s field. She could add a little more spice to Western States should she accept her Montrail Ultra Cup spot. Ashley Nordell ran a very smart race, moving up the field to finish second to also earn a WS100 spot. Megan Laib ran aggressively in second for at least the first half of the race before fading to third in the race’s second half. Jenny Capel showed her fitness with her fourth place finish ahead of SoCal’s Angela Shartel.

Reference is made to Ben Hian's 17-year-old course record. As a point of clarification, the course has undergone significant changes a number of times since Ben's previous event record in 1995. I'm not familiar with the 1995 course, so perhaps someone who is could compare the difficulty of 1995 and 2012 courses.

Having raced with Heather Fuhr 10 years ago at Lake Placid Ironman and watching her little body blow by me on the run, I'm now stoked to know that she has come to the Dark Side and is doing the same thing. Way to go, Heather.